Murdoch’s own newspaper calls him ‘evil’

It appears that even employees of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s own publications don’t too much care for the cantankerous octogenarian — and they’re not half bad at puzzles, either.

That’s at least the determination that many readers of
Australia’s largest newspaper made this week after catching a
curious secret message of sorts in the Sunday Telegraph.

It took a few days for anyone to notice, but an “animals of
Indonesia”-themed word search puzzle in the children’s section of
this weekend’s edition contained more than just the hidden names
of regional residents like the weasel and orangutan: within the
game were the letters “LIVESIHCODRUM” all in a row.

When written in reverse from backwards to forwards, that cipher
spells out “MURDOCH IS EVIL,” a not-so-nice-message some say was
intended for the paper’s embattled publisher.

The clue was first spotted by reporters on Tuesday, and the
Sunday Telegraph has so far stayed mum on the issue, refusing to
offer comment to other publications.

One competitor had something to say, however: Australian
publication The Sydney Morning Herald. After the message was
spotted, the administrator of the SMH Twitter account announced,
“Someone's been having some fun in the Sunday
Telegraph.”

Others were quick to point out the puzzle and use it as an
opportunity to lampoon Murdoch, the 82-year-old mogul whose media
empire and reputation alike have been relentlessly under attack
in recent years for a number of mishaps. Just
this week, in fact, it was reported that Brian Lewis — a
former public relations executive at the Murdoch-owned television
network Fox News — was paid $8 million to keep quiet about the
inner workings of that organization upon his exit.

The meant-to-be-elusive operations of other entities under
Murdoch’s News Corp group — which maintains control of papers
like The New York Post and Wall Street Journal — haven’t been as
secretive, however. Only two months ago a handful of former execs
at the corporation’s News of the World paper pleaded guilty for
involvement in a controversial phone hacking scandal. Rebekah
Brooks, the former editor of The Sun, is currently on trial so a
jury can determine what role if any she had in the escapade.

Meanwhile, questions are being asked of not just Brooks, but of
the Telegraph’s puzzle writers.

“So was it a mistake? A coincidence?” the Herald’s Tim
Elliott asked of the
word puzzle in an article published on his paper’s website this
Tuesday. “Is a ‘LIVESIHCODRUM’ a new Indonesian species? Or
was Harry the Dog trying to tell us something?”

For those unfamiliar with the anamorphic canine, Harry the Dog is
the “Newshound” mascot that appears in the Sunday Telegraph
alongside the word search puzzle. As for “HCODRUM,” preliminary
reports suggest that could very well be the name of the only
non-exist dinosaur in the world.